


ice; in case [of] emergency

by theflyjar



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angel Powers, Cold, Cold Weather, Drowning, Ice, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Prophetic Visions, Snow and Ice, Teleportation, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 10:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyjar/pseuds/theflyjar
Summary: Once death came, it stayed.





	ice; in case [of] emergency

**Author's Note:**

> i'm in the midst of clearing out my dusty files

He felt the cold, the ice beneath his bare toes, the cloistered enclosure of the treeline pulling him back and the heavy, frozen pickaxe in his hand. His sight was what betrayed him. Or at least he thought it did. There was something heavier in the air, it hung over him like a funeral prayer in a run down church of a barren town in an equally desolate landscape. There was no shaking the sense of barbarism as he stared across the thick sheen of solidified water, not even a dribble down the back of his bare neck, and it shook him. What he witnessed, what he came to see, _shook_ _him_.

His eyes did not move, their innocence remained until the very last moments of the vision before him. He saw it slowly, as if in slow motion, then all at once. The first reel was a stop-motion, once scene came as another ebbed away. The body stood upon the ice. The body lost beneath the surface. The second showing his mind displayed was a second by second recount. A woman, no taller than himself, stood facing the way the wind came and a crack, an ear splitting and earth shattering crack. He saw her mouth fall open in a scream that never came, her hands splayed out to grip at nothing but drifting snowflakes and her legs slipped between the cracked sheets of ice.

In all his years, Yixing had been sheltered from death, even saved from it a few times and his naive look upon life never distorted to change that. Until he saw that unknown woman.

That body in the lake.

Yixing watched her fall through, struggling against the unforgiving pull of the icy water beneath. He wasn’t sure when he dropped his axe, he didn’t register the clang of the metal on the ice but he could remember his toes curling in shock.

Yixing didn’t feel himself falling, he merely recollected how the water kissed his blueing feet and licked up his body until he was completely covered in the chilling decanter of liquid winter.

Visions came to Yixing in flashes, sometimes, scenes of other people throwing him to their location. Where he had been stood in front of the log pile at Yifan’s grandmother’s cabin was no longer around him. Just whiteness, the shadows of trees and a frozen solid lake.

He was supposed to be a saviour. A helper to those in need. He’d never been “gifted” with a death before. He’d never had to save a life. He’d never failed before.

Yixing hadn’t realised he was trapped under the ice until he was pulled out. There was no coughing or spluttering when he broke the surface but firmly warm lips pumped air into his immobile lungs. He knew with every part of himself who owned those lips; mint lingered on the tongue and spice peppered the spittle.

Yifan.

His lungs burned, he choked air into himself as he felt water rise up and erupt from his throat, the lips on his pulled back slightly and he could hear the distant beckonings of Yifan’s voice, “ _Yixing, Yixing, Yixing_.”

The drowned man sat up quickly, his eyes passing over to where the woman had fallen in and saw a gaping crack that rippled all the way along to the shoreline he had been dragged onto.

“The woman,” he croaked and the syllables got lost somewhere in his mouth, but he knew Yifan could unscramble it.

Yifan was a saviour, too. Tethered to Yixing. His only devotion was to save Yixing from death.

“I couldn’t,” Yifan shook his head, the water that clung to his hair already freezing in the whipping wind. “It was you or her. I can’t live without you.”

_I chose you, I will always choose you._

Warmth washed over the two men as they were thrown back to where their outdoor burner crackled. Their shivering bodies were warmed with thick blankets  that Yifan’s grandmother draped over them. And Yixing clung to Yifan, his hands clenched at the other’s clothing. He waited for the sadness to come and husk him.

Yixing knew he’d always be miserable because once death came, it stayed.


End file.
